Ghouls, Story 2 of 4: Cherry's Story
by OllieLemur
Summary: Malkavian ghoul Cherry, a NJ call girl, recalls the night of the April Fool's Elysium Massacre. "With Cam-held NYC rocked by the frenzy-inducing Red Plague, the fallout reshapes the lives of those unfortunates connected to Kindred society."


**Ghouls**

**Part Two: Cherry**

It was almost four a.m. by the time I could duck out of work and talk to Svetlana. It'd been an hour earlier that I was playing Lady Luck for this new-money kid who was a bit too excited to be losing his inheritance all night and dropping me hundreds every time he did. Then I'd spotted this tower of girl out across the floor, standing in the lobby of the casino looking all hurt, like a lost kitten someone'd been kicking around. I tell you too, she was just as out of place as a kitten might have been wandering the betting floor.

So, it was Sunday night—well, technically Monday morning—and the casino weren't as hopping as it could have been. If Svetlana showed up a couple hours earlier, I wouldn't have known her from Adam. Instead, she was the lucky one. There weren't a lot of customers cluttering up the place. It was real easy to tell she wasn't doing so hot, standing around the way she was, with her eyes gone wide and tears just springing from them. What a mess! It was actually her eyes, and how she looked so damn lost, that I saw first before I even recognized her as being Stevie's ghoul.

Soon as my mark, uh… you know, the customer? Well, soon as he had to hit the head, I ducked over to Svetlana. She wrapped me up in a big hug and cried harder. She started jabbering about the guys up at _Sang's_ and some big party they'd all been at and something about this other ghoul Kyle and rubbing alcohol. I listened close, but she didn't say nothing about Rusty—oh, that's my Big City boyfriend, he gave me these earrings, nice huh?—well she didn't say nothing about him being hurt so I wasn't that worried.

Of course, then she stopped making much sense, blubbering and talking in a language that, sorry sweetie, I just didn't get. You can talk at me with English and with cash but that's where my understanding stops.

I was nice to her, though, don't get me wrong. She'd clearly been through something and came all the way down from New York just to talk to me. I guess she thinks of me as one of her girlfriends? I wouldn't say we're _that_ close, but I'd sure do a lot to help her out. We're in a weird spot, us two. And her cop friend, Majumbo, too. We're all new to this blood-sucker stuff. I don't worry too much about the club owner's ghouls, on account of I get the feeling they've been at this for longer. But Svetlana, something about her… I just want to help her out, you know? Stevie's a girl, and she definitely swings "that way," but I ain't so sure Svetlana does. So they don't have what I have with my Rusty. They're a bit more… impersonal.

So anyway, I set Svetlana up in the restaurant with a couple of drinks and asked my bartender buddy to make friends with her so I could I finished out my shift. And thank God he did, too, cause she sure needed that shoulder to cry on. His shirt was soaked and smeared with mascara by the end of it.

Meanwhile, my customer ended up passed out in the bathroom. The security guard on duty fished him out for me so I could bring him up to his hotel room. I pocketed the five hundred dollar tip he threw at me before he passed out again, and went to work setting him up to look like we'd screwed the rest of the night out. While I was at it, I snagged the diamond stud out of his ear. If you leave the backing on the bed, they always think they lost in the room. I tell you, with guys like him—with more money than God—that trick works every time. Half of them don't even call the manager to get on house keeping's ass looking for it.

…where was I?

Oh, right, Svetlana was crying all over the bartender. He was fine with it. He's a good guy. Gave her his phone number, too. But he was glad I showed back up, on account of wanting to clean up before he went off shift.

I helped Svetlana out of the casino and to a nearby diner, where she drowned her sorrows in a chocolate shake and some disco fries. How she keeps her figure, I've never figured out. I'd kill to be able to eat like that and still have a body like hers. But I don't know; I hear she like works as a jazzercise instructor, so maybe that's her secret.

And then she calms down enough to tell me the whole sad story of the evening.

I guess Stevie had called her up a little after 2a.m. looking for a carload of rubbing alcohol or something like that. Said Kyle was hurt real bad. Well, he'd have to be if they needed to practically give the guy a bath in that stuff.

Now, Svetlana said she hadn't seen him herself but that some other fanger told her Zane—that's the vamp who owns _Sangs_—had been ordered to, like, cut the skin off Kyle's back in front of hundreds of other vamps. And from the way Svetlana was spitting out his name, it didn't sound like Zane so much as flinched at the whole idea, just went about his orders.

Svetlana was getting hysterical by that point, telling me what had happened up in the city at this big vampie party. I had to take her out of there, so I paid the diner tab and got us in my car and started driving. I figured getting out of New York would be good for her, too. So we hopped on the Turnpike, and headed towards Philly just to have somewhere to go.

The whole time I'm driving, Svetlana's calming down but she keeps talking. It sounds like a nightmare. Or like some twisted up version of _The Passion of the Christ_. Or what I think it'd be like. Never bothered to watch it. Eh, it's not my thing. But you know, what I'm saying, right?

Then Svetlana tells me that Kyle was being punished on account of what happened like a month ago at _Sangs_. See, Rusty—my boyfriend, remember?—he had asked me to dance that night. I told him of course would! He just needs to ask. He's always so reasonable.

So there I was at the club up in Brooklyn. It's usually more the place you'd see mohawked punks and metalheads, but that night there was a special event, closed to the public. The vampire leaders of the city were having a spring ball or whatever. No big.

I was just dancing in a cage on the second floor balcony next to Lenore, the club owner's other ghoul, and Kyle was downstairs working the bar. Next thing I knew, the room beside me was full of screaming and noises like nothing I ever heard before. A couple of the fangies came running out, their eyes all bloodshot like they were on the biggest coke high of their un-lives.

One of them slammed into my cage and started clawing at me, swiping at my face, and there was blood all gushing down the front of my dress. This vamp, he got my arm and pulled so hard I thought he was trying to rip it right out! My God, and I screamed! I hit back hard as I could, but I ain't no match for some psycho-bloodsucker in a rage.

I had only a few seconds to undo the latch on the cage when I started hearing Lenore next to me, shrieking like a goddamn banshee. There's Lenore in her cage, pulled tight against the bars, and some John had his fangs dug deep in her shoulder. One arm was pinned up behind her; the other one crushed backwards through the bars. And this chick-vampie was latched onto Lenore's wrist.

When a hand started reaching through the cage around my ankles, you better believe their fingers got the business end of my heels.

Downstairs, someone's firing off a gun from the bar I think. It's chaos far as I could see. So I stop wasting time and get out of that death-cage.

And the whole time this craziness is taking over _Sangs_, I'm trying to remember where my Rusty and his friends had run off to. Cause I mean, if I could have gotten to my cell I would have called him. He'd have wanted to know we was in danger, and then he'd be there to rescue me!

But instead, it was Kyle who did the rescuing. For me and Lenore.

He came running up the steps to the balcony, covered in blood and guts and stuff. And he fought back the vampies from Lenore's cage; hit them in the head with the butt of a shotgun. Lenore was damn near passed out from being fed on like that, so I helped open up the cage while Kyle's kicking the crazy vamps down the stairs. Then he scooped her up and got her on her feet. I heard him ask if she could walk. I guess she must have nodded, 'cause the next thing Kyle's pulling me along and Lenore's half leaning on him as we head downstairs.

I asked him if he was nuts wanting to go down into that, but Kyle just kept pulling.

The lights started flickering then, and over by the band stage there's a spray of sparks in the air. I could see the whole dance floor as we went, with so much blood and fighting. All the pictures on the wall that Rusty's friend had made were getting ruined and clawed at as ghouls and vampires who didn't have the crazy eyes were trying to get away.

Everything went so fast after that. I know it wasn't easy getting through the crowd, but we did. Lenore was hurt worse than I had thought, or maybe she got attacked more on the way, but I was too freaked to notice.

Kyle was the one with the plan. No one followed us into the back; they was too busy with each other to notice. Which was lucky, too. If they'd seen us opening up the cooler door, I don't know how long we would have been safe in there. But Kyle said we'd be safe so long as we locked it from the inside. I didn't even think that was possible to do, but he told me how. Said it was a special feature.

And I wasn't supposed to open that door for no one, 'cept Zane. Not even Rusty, Kyle goes and tells me. But forget that. If my Rusty were there on the other side, I would have opened that door in a heartbeat, and who cares what "precautions" Kyle thought he was taking.

I thought about asking if I could grab an orange from the bin, since we were in the cooler and it wasn't like we were about to starve in there. But I kept away, because Kyle was looking pretty beat up himself but more scared for Lenore.

And I'd have rather Rusty was there anyway.

But Kyle sat there on the floor of the cooler the whole time, holding Lenore, coddling her, and whispering against her hair. It was sweet. Like, they must be real close.

She was a wreck. Those vamps did a real number on her… Half the time she was mumbling in Spanish, which I know a few _choice_ words in. Lenore, she kept saying over and over again _perro, perro_. "Dog, dog."

I have no idea what she meant, if anything. Probably was hallucinating from all the blood she lost. But it got me thinking: it sounded like it would be nice if a dog had been there. One of those St. Bernard's, the rescue dogs who go around mountains in Europe. They got hot cocoa or whiskey in this barrel around their neck you can drink to stay warm, you know? Anyway, I could have used one of them.

I remember thinking how glad I was that we were hiding out in a cooler, not a freezer. Because an hour later when someone's knocking on the door. I didn't answer at first, but then I heard them talking, asking who was in there.

Thank God, it was Zane! I opened the door for him and he heads right to Kyle and Lenore to check on them.

But wouldn't you know, after Zane comes in there's this great big dog standing in the hallway! Just like I was thinking about. And he's so nice. Sure, he doesn't have any drinks for us, but I could have hugged him all night. And my Rusty, he was back too, so he took care of the drink part, if you know what I mean. And after I told him what happened, he tells me the dog can stay with me while I rest. It was just real nice.

You see, though, Kyle was a hero in all that! He saved my life, and he saved Lenore's. I don't think I would have made it out of that room alive without him around.

So, if what Svetlana was telling me was true, then what the heck was he being punished for?


End file.
